Security

Why Go Passwordless? Passwords are the weakest link in account security. Microsoft estimates that passwords are involved in over 18 billion attacks every year — roughly 579 attacks per second. Weak or reused passwords are the primary entry point for account takeovers, phishing, and credential-stuffing attacks. The good news: Microsoft has made it genuinely easy to remove your password entirely. Since September 2021, all personal Microsoft accounts can go passwordless. And since May 2025, new Microsoft accounts are passwordless by default. Once you make the switch, you’ll sign in with something you have (your phone or a security key) and something you are (fingerprint, face, or PIN) — far harder to steal than a string of characters. ...

On April 15, 2025, a revelation from the Harbin Municipal Public Security Bureau sparked major controversy: 3 NSA operatives from the U.S. National Security Agency allegedly launched large-scale cyberattacks against the “9th Asian Winter Games” in Harbin and China’s critical information infrastructure by exploiting reserved backdoors in Microsoft Windows systems. China didn’t publish the photos and reward amount of the attackers, but the announcement indicates that China has the ability to find out the individuals and their identities behind the attack with its technology. And this is likely to accelerate China’s push to replace foreign operating systems with domestically-developed alternatives, a move closely tied to national security concerns. ...